Audio recording tips

    This page has information about best practices and tips for recording audio, either in-house or on location.

    audio recording tips

    Best Practices and Tips

    • Read the manual that comes with the equipment and make sure you know the do's and don'ts of your equipment.
    • Completely set up your equipment and carry out a test run.
    • Always personally check that your equipment is complete and properly packed.
    • Take enough time to set up the camera and sound before the actual recording starts. This will avoid stress and you forgetting things.
    • When recording outdoors try to find a quiet and shielded place out of the wind. If necessary use windshields for the microphone(s).
    • Use a tripod whenever possible, even if it is only a small lightweight one. If absolutely necessary you can also use a table, a chair or something similar.
    • Keep the microphone cable as short as possible. (Do not use long extension cables.)
    • Place the microphone as close as possible, but not too close to the subject.
    • Be aware of the characteristics of the microphone. Make sure that the microphone is adjusted correctly, e.g. make sure that the microphone does not ‘listen’ to the ground or face the wrong direction.
    • Because of the physical construction most ‘asymmetric’ microphones are sensitive for hum and other noise. ‘Symmetric’ microphones don’t suffer from this but are not always compatible with the standard recording equipment.
    • Most external microphones need batteries and have to be switched on before use. When the microphone is switched on and the battery has enough power a little red light on the microphone flashes several times.
    • Connect a headphone to the recorder.
    • Check if the sound is good with your headphone (no hum/noise caused by bad plug connections).
    • Do not put sound cable on or over power cables.
    • Use batteries instead of main power adapter.
    • Avoid body contact.
    • Do not speak directly into the microphone (breathing noises), but speak `over` it.
    • Always make a test recording first to check the quality. Listen back to the recording and adjust settings or move to a better location and try again.
    • Leave some silence at the start and ending of each recording, to avoid speech being cut-off.
    • Set the recording level of the device so that the signal is not ‘over-recorded’ and also not too weak. Especially for digital recorders, recording too loud gives an ugly distorted sound.
    • Recordings on digital media have to be either with a sample rate of 44.1 Khz or 48 Khz and a resolution of at least 16 Bits. (also called linear PCM recording)
    • Do not make recordings in MP3 for later archiving, unless there is really no other option.
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